


just take my wallet

by thankskelley



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Flowers, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Insecure Kyan Reki, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Rated T for language, Reki-Centric, chinen miya is the only one with common sense, kind of diverges from episode 8, langa hasegawa is the sweetest boy i know, post episode 7, reki needs to not bottle up his feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29749551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankskelley/pseuds/thankskelley
Summary: Langa glows, he thinks that’s the best word for it. When he was watching those skateboard trick videos with Reki, when he nailed one of the basics, when he watched Reki adjust his board, when he used his board to cut through gravity in a way Reki has never witnessed before. Something in the core of him just turns to light; it beams out of his eyes, his smile, the shimmer of his hair. It’s too much to look at directly, sometimes.On a note unrelated to that train of thought, Reki turns of his phone.-Sometimes, things are better said aloud.
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 16
Kudos: 216





	just take my wallet

**Author's Note:**

> this was conceived and written from midnight to 3.30am. it is now 4am, i’m so sorry if you can tell.  
> the title is the song just take my wallet by jack stauber, because i really thought it summed up their fight and i’ve been listening to it to cope.

Maybe he should have been expecting it.

The more he thinks about it (and he has been, a lot,) the more glaringly obvious it seems. It was that he didn’t want to see it, really. Miya and Shadow had even gone so far as to spell it out for him. He traces the word against the comforter, _T-A-L-E-N-T._ How cruel.

Because Reki had worked hard, hadn’t he? He had practised, not just to get better, but because he had enjoyed it. He managed an ollie in just two months, that was good, that was _supposed_ to be good—

But all he is, all he has ever been, is the same shade of grey that clings to his ceilings as the light shrinks out of the room. A slime, isn’t that what Miya had said? He fucking hates it when that kid’s right.

 _Was that good, Reki?_ his phone parrots, laying discarded by his ear. The Langa in the videos is just as stark and striking as the real thing. He stands out against the backdrop of the skatepark, a shock of blue and ice against the sun on concrete. Langa has always looked a little bit unreal like that. Initially Reki had taken it to be the luck of the Pretty Boy Genes, he has the smooth and effortless cool of someone girls would fawn over. But he quickly learned that there was more to Langa than just that.

Langa _glows,_ he thinks that’s the best word for it. When he was watching those skateboard trick videos with Reki, when he nailed one of the basics, when he watched Reki adjust his board, when he used his board to cut through gravity in a way Reki has never witnessed before. Something in the core of him just turns to light; it beams out of his eyes, his smile, the shimmer of his hair. It’s too much to look at directly, sometimes.

On a note unrelated to that train of thought, Reki turns of his phone.

He curls on his side, facing the wall. Maybe the stupidest part of it all is how badly he wishes he weren’t alone right now. Before Langa, he could feel lonely, sure. Especially that first time he’d lost a friend, but that was an old wound, its exact size and ache forgotten over time. This loneliness is distinct from the time Before Langa. This feels like a loss. His heart hurts, and he wants to see him. He has a dozen benign things to say to him, stupid jokes and remarks and observations.

But there’s a wall between them that he can’t scale.

Once again, _T-A-L-E-N-T._ His mouth tastes sour.

“Oi, Reki,” he hears, followed by the sound of swift feet against the ground, catching up to him.

He knows who it is before he turns, the voice was all too pre-pubescent for him to be able to mistake it for anyone else. “Miya,” he greets, breaking off the eye contact sharply.

He may be coming across as rude, but honestly he’s hardly in the mood to deal with another talented freak today. It’d been hard enough to ignore Langa these past few days, especially when the guy had been staring holes into the side of his head. Not to mention his dejected little kicked-puppy expression when Reki blew him off.

“I didn’t know you walked home this way,” Reki mentions casually as Miya falls into step next to him. It does actually surprise him. As far as he knows, Miya goes to school on the other side of town; he rarely sees kids in that uniform around.

Miya waves a hand, eyes focused on the line where the sky meets the sea, “actually, I’m going to see Shadow. It’s my mom’s birthday this week, and the guy is like… _creepy_ good at that bouquet shit.”

“Language,” Reki cuts in, mainly to piss Miya off.

“Speaking of moms, you’re incredibly motherly, you know that?” He turns and watches as Miya crinkles his nose in disgust, “like I said, I do already have a mom, but thanks anyway.”

Seriously, Reki does not generally advocate for violence against children, but he may be willing to make an exception in Miya’s case. “Don’t you have homework to do or something?” He asks instead.

“Done it,” Miya retorts breezily, “algebra; piece of cake. Don’t _you_ have homework, slime?”

Reki does not reply, because he does, in fact, have homework. Miya’s mouth twists into that superior smirk he does when he knows he’s winning. “Well, I’ll see ya, I guess,” Reki waves him off, and tries to put some distance between them by widening his stride. He may not have Miya beat in many ways, but when it comes to leg length, he is most certainly the winner.

Miya, however, either does not pick up on the hint or brushes past it entirely. “Hold up, Reki,” he calls, and quickens his pace once more. “Jeez, you really are in a sour mood, huh?”

Reki can’t bring himself to either confirm or deny, so he just shrugs with a huff.

“What’s going on with you and Langa?” Miya demands, and the question shouldn’t be as surprising as it is. Langa went to _S_ last night, because of course he did, and Miya (the genius little shit) definitely must have figured out something was up. “Shadow said not to get involved, and I get that whatever it is, it’s between the two of you, but I’m also your friend, you know.”

Reki actually has to look away at that. _Friends, sure_ , he thinks, _but you couldn’t ever understand what it’s like to be the weak link in a group of geniuses._

“There’s nothing going on,” Reki denies, because it’s easier than voicing any of this. Than having to say aloud, _I’m not good enough._

Miya levels him with a deadpan stare, “you’re an idiot, Reki, but you’re not dumb enough to think I’ll actually believe that.”

“Believe it or don’t,” Reki shrugs, “it’s not my problem.”

“Oh, so when Langa decides he’s done waiting for an apology, when there’s no more room to _make amends,_ you’ll be okay with that?” Miya prompts, “do you know what it’s like to lose a friend?”

“Yeah, I do, actually,” Reki bites, but Miya, to his credit, remains undeterred.

“So you know that the shame of having to suck it up and own your share of the guilt,” he directs his gaze towards the ground, “is _nothing_ compared to the regret you feel when it’s too late.”

Reki doesn’t have anything to say to that. They’ve stopped walking now, and Reki’s back is to the seashore. He can see that the sky has begun to glow the faintest tint of orange, the sun is on the precipice of setting. Miya watches him, green eyes evaluating whether his words have had the desired effect. “I’m not saying it’s just your fault… I don’t know what happened, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be up to me to make that call. And Langa can be just as thick-skulled as you, if not more,” Reki snorts at that, in spite of himself, and Miya grins a little at the positive response. “But it’s not cowardly to be the first to apologise. And you don’t want to lose him, _that_ much is obvious,” he punctuates it with an eye roll.

Reki allows the words a moment to sink in.

Langa had apologised to him, but it had only made him angrier. Maybe because he knew Langa didn’t exactly know what he was apologising for. He could see in Langa’s eyes, Reki’s anger had caught him off guard. He didn’t understand. After what seemed like an almost wordless connection between them, to have this chasmic difference in view, Reki didn’t even know where to begin, how to explain the pit in his stomach when he thought of Adam. When he thought of Langa skating against Adam. And would Langa even understand the feeling of being outmatched, outpaced, of being left in the dust when you’ve been in the race longer than anyone else?

But then, had he really tried to explain himself?

Is it Langa he’s angry at?

Well, yeah. A little. But he’s also angry at himself, for not being able to keep up. And he’s angry at all those people who insulted him, some while skating on boards _he_ designed. And he’s fucking _pissed_ at Adam, who treated him like he was disposable.

“Yeah,” Reki breathes, and it feels like he’s breathing clearly for the first time in days. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

“Duh, of course you will,” Miya scoffs, rolling his eyes once more, “seventeen-year-olds are so _dramatic,_ you realise this isn’t _Twilight_ right, slime? And it’s kind of embarrassing that you had to get some sense talked into you by a thirteen-year-old, huh—”

“I’m not opposed to beating the shit out of little brats who are asking for it,” Reki scowls, but it’s followed by a good natured huff and Miya’s face splits into a genuine boyish smile.

Miya sets his board on the ground and pushes forward, but still manages to keep pace with Reki, “like you could catch me, slime.”

He eventually pulls away where the path forks, heading down towards the city and Reki waves him off, “see ya!” he calls.

“You sure you don’t wanna come?” Miya questions over his shoulder, “some flowers really might help your case with Langa, you know.”

Reki feels the pink spread from the apple of his cheeks to the very tips of his ears. He stammers helplessly, looking for the right retort, but Miya doesn’t wait for an answer. He just skates away, his tinkling laughter slipping further into the distance.

He spends most of the evening room, trying to formulate the exact right thing to say to Langa. More than anything, he doesn’t want to argue again, but he also wants Langa to understand him, or to at least be able to sympathise. He wants to be able to explain exactly what he’s feeling aloud, instead of allowing the negativity to ferment in his chest like he had done.

The idea, to be perfectly honest, does scare him quite a bit. Once words have been spoken, you can’t take them back. Once he says them out loud, they’ll exist in the real world, and they won’t be his, alone. He won’t be able to ignore them anymore.

He scrolls through his camera roll, stopping at one of the earlier videos of him training Langa, teaching him how to turn properly on the board, before he’d altered the wheels to take some stress off the board. He explains the technique from off screen, and he cringes a little at the boyish overexcited nature of his voice. He watches Langa’s reaction intently, however. He nods eagerly, muttering Reki’s instructions back to himself and practicing his foot placing on the concrete. Reki’s lips twitch upwards of their own accord. What really catches his attention, however, is the look in Langa’s eye when he turns to Reki. Excited doesn’t quite reach the height of it.

Enamoured, that’s it. He looks utterly enamoured.

Reki’s stomach drops from the roof of a four-storey building.

He pauses the video and looks more closely at Langa’s face. The slight upturn of the mouth, that glow of his eyes, and the way his whole body seems entirely focused in Reki’s direction. Reki can _feel_ the way his heart picks up speed.

Has Langa always looked at him like that? This whole time?

When the clock in the corner of the room reads midnight, he realises he should probably try and get some rest. He turns off his phone, before spending another hour and a half screwing his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heart, and willing sleep to fucking take him already.

“You look tired,” his sister says, in the morning, “and you’re up early.”

He dashes to grab his lunch from the table, “I’m meeting someone,” he explains, before rushing out the door and closing it with a satisfactory _bang._

“Someone,” she scoffs, turning to their mother who smiles fondly to herself, “who else is it gonna be?”

Part of him hadn’t expected Langa to be there. He had expected to get to the end of his road, with Langa decidedly missing, and he would have to hunt him down on the way to school.

That’s not exactly what happens.

Langa’s spot is most definitely empty, but as Reki glances around to see if the other is anywhere to be found, his eyes latch on to a shock of blue. “Langa?” He mutters, more to himself than anyone around him. As he turns to focus, he sees him, probably a half a dozen yards away, standing in that slightly awkward ramrod way he always does. Even if he wanted to, Reki wouldn’t have been able to restrain the gleeful “Langa!” that escapes him.

Langa, on his part, is the perfect image of a deer caught in headlights. His eyes, so blue even from this distance, are wide and disbelieving. His arms are frozen at his sides and his feet seem firmly planted in the concrete. Reki, however, luckily crosses the distance between them, resting his hands on his knees when they finally stand face to face.

It’s only been a couple of days, but it hits Reki all at once, just how much he missed looking into Langa’s eyes.

“Reki?” Is all Langa can seem to manage for the moment, his expression is primarily confused, a touch incredulous, and the way he says Reki’s name gives the impression that he still doesn’t quite believe that this is happening. “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes! Well, no. Not technically, because I just got there. But I would have… waited for you, that is,” Reki begins, and immediately he’s rambling. He should have known this is where sleeping so little would get him.

There’s a long and steady silence between them, and Reki gets the distinct sense that they are both trying to give the other the chance to say their piece.

“Reki—”

“Lan— oh, uh. You go.”

Langa shakes his head quickly, “I was just going to say you look tired.”

Reki smiles, and averts his gaze sheepishly, “gee, thanks.”

Langa furrows his brow, “are you sleeping okay?”

“Well. Uh— we can get into that later. Really, what I wanted to say was,” Reki takes a deep breath. He can feel these nerves biting their way through his veins, his hands feels stiff at his sides and his breath feels quick and stutters, but nevertheless, he had confidence in what he’s going to say. He knows, he _knows,_ that even if Langa doesn’t understand, he’ll be kind. Because that’s who Reki knows him to be. “I understand why you didn’t understand me before.”

If at all possible, Langa’s brow furrows even more, “what?”

“I was mad, and you apologised and that… that made me _madder_ , and that’s because I knew you didn’t really know what you were apologising for. I mean, I guess breaking your promise, but it felt like you were using your apology as a bandaid, you know? Trying to make it all better. But now I get it! Because you _never thought I was lame._ ”

Langa had been puzzled before, now he looks downright vexed. There’s even a pinch of concern in his gaze, “I… of course not. Why would I think that?”

“Because I am! Or… it feels like I am, anyways. In comparison to you. And Miya, and Cherry and Joe, and Shadow. Adam too. I’m not…” the word, the fucking word, it always gets caught in his throat, “I’m not _talented_ like you guys are. And you were all getting further away and… and it _sucks._ Being left behind. It’s lonely and—and it’s _frustrating,_ like you can work all you want and still not even be able to graze the heights that the naturally gifted can,” he sighs, flexing his hands at his sides, “and I didn’t want you to leave me behind. Not for Adam, not for anyone. I wanted us to skate together and I wanted— I _want_ … I want it to stay fun. And I was trying to… to tell you this and you were just looking at me like you had no fucking clue what I was talking about. And, I mean, yeah, I’m probably not the best… talker, but you felt so, _so_ far away for me and you were purposefully creating more distance.”

“…Adam,” Langa interjects softly, understandingly.

Reki lets out a brief huff of laughter, “yeah… breaking the promise was just, the last straw for me. It was like… I don’t know, like you’d outgrown me or something,” Langa looks almost distraught when Reki says that, but he doesn’t interrupt, so Reki continues. “But I realised when I was wa— when I was thinking about it that you couldn’t understand me because you never saw me that way. You…” Reki can’t help the way his voice softens, the way the corners of his mouth turn upwards, “you never stopped viewing us as equals.”

“Why would I?” Langa asks, and it doesn’t sound like a challenge, his voice is soft and comforting and Reki sinks into the warmth of it. “Reki… you— you _are_ skating to me, you know that, right?”

In his chest, Reki’s heart stutters to a halt.

“Skating without you, it’s… it’s not right. You’re the reason I started skating, the reason I could learn, the reason I have a board, the reason I can skate the way I can. I can’t skate without you. I don’t want to,” Langa takes a breathe, his voice remains calm and steady but his words are laced with so much sincerity that Reki feels overwhelmed by it, “there’s the board, and the wheels, the track, the wind in your ears… and there’s you. You’re a part of it to me.

“And… I shouldn’t have made that promise to you about Adam, because it wasn’t a promise I could keep. And I won’t promise now that I won’t skate against him again, or do other things that might make you mad, because that would be lying and it’s not fair. But… I will listen to you, and when you tell me to slow down I can… I _will_ try. It’s not like you’ve been wrong so far.”

“And you wouldn’t be my Langa if you weren’t doing stupid dangerous shit all the time,” Reki jokes with a grin, but it’s only when Langa’s eyes catch his that he realises what he’s said. “ _Langa,_ I mean, not… not _mine_ in particular, just… just. Yeah, slip of the tongue. _A_ Langa, just… fuck…”

When he removes his face from his hands, he sees that Langa is smiling, part amused, part affectionate. Once again, Reki feels his chest constrict. His face, if the temperature of it is telling him anything, is likely a deep pink to a vivid red. “Dammit, I always mess up when I’m trying to sound cool,” he complains.

Langa takes a breath, “I do dangerous things because I don’t like to feel like I’m not alive. After dad… everything felt unmoving… it didn’t feel like I was living, it was like the days were passing through me. And, I was lonely. And _you_ and skating changed that when I moved here. And I can’t stop taking some of those risks, because then I might as well stop skating. But… you, being with you also helps with the… the loneliness. And the feeling like I’m alive. So. Uh, yeah. That’s it.”

Reki takes a breath, “okay, okay,” he says, “but you’re gonna at least hear me out, you swear?”

Langa’s lips twist into a small smile, he nods.

“Okay. Okay good, I can live with that.”

Langa’s smile only grows at that, and he takes a step toward Reki, “I have something for you,” he says before swinging his backpack around and rummaging through it. Reki furrows his brow.

Langa pulls out a singular white tulip, a red ribbon tied around it in a bow. It’s slightly bent, probably from being in his bag, but surprisingly most of the petals are in tact. “When I talked to Shadow at _S_ , he said the best way to a girl’s heart is through flowers.”

“You realise the bastard’s only trying to get you to buy from his shop, right?” Reki says, but his grin is wide enough to split his face when Langa holds it out to him, “wait, girl?”

Langa shrugs, “I did correct him. I didn’t have enough for a whole bouquet though, so he probably didn’t make much from it anyway,” Reki takes the flower from him gently, and traces one of the petals softly with his finger. It’s so delicate, he realises. No one’s ever bought him flowers before. “Apparently this one means ‘I’m sorry’. I didn’t know flowers could mean things.”

“I’m not much into flowers, myself, you know,” Reki says, grinning coyly.

Langa frowns, “I can take it back.”

“What? No, it’s mine. I…” he regards the flower, trying not to convey with his face just how much it makes his heart surge. “I like it,” he decides.

Langa smiles, his eyes soften.

Reki’s not exactly sure what it is that inspires it, perhaps the culmination of everything Langa has said up until this point, but he tilts his head up and closes his eyes, and places a chaste, lingering kiss on Langa’s mouth.

Reki has kissed a grand total of two people before, but he knows the sensation of his lips on another’s well enough. However, despite the simplicity of the kiss, kissing Langa is an entirely different ballpark. Immediately once their lips touch, Reki thinks, _oh._ He feels it reverberate through his whole body. _This is what it feels like to kiss him, oh._ Because there is kissing people, and then there is kissing Langa. And it turns out Langa’s lips are soft, and are perfectly accommodating to his own. Reki’s hand, feather light against his cheek, still notes the smoothness of his skin, how wonderful it is to have it against the pad of his thumb. _Oh,_ he thinks, and means it with every iota of him, _yeah, this is right._

When he withdraws, Langa’s staring at him, blue eyes wider than perhaps he’s ever seen them, and his fair skin is flooded with the prettiest pink. “Sorry. I felt bad, because I didn’t get you anything,” Reki says, and his grins.

It takes Langa a moment to recover, but eventually he manages a “you kissed me.”

Reki raises an eyebrow, “did you like it?”

Langa doesn’t meet his eye-line, in fact, he retreats behind his hair. Reki watches as he nods.

“That’s good,” Reki says, directing his smile at the flower in his hands, “I did too.”

He wonders how the flower will look on his window sill. He’d have to find a jar for it, of course, or would a cup hold it properly? Anything with water, he guesses. He thinks that maybe he should print some of the photos of them that he has on his phone, and hang them on his wall. He thinks that maybe he should buy Langa flowers, or better yet, chocolate. Chocolate’s romantic, isn’t it? He thinks of skating. And he thinks of being left behind and being alone. But then he thinks of the feeling of the board against his hand as he sands it down, as he paints it. The exhilaration when he watches someone’s skate on something he made. The pride when Langa finally managed an ollie, because of him. The absolute joy of having Langa skate alongside him.

He thinks about ‘ _you are skating to me_ ’.

And he thinks he’ll be okay.

“In that case, can we do it again?”

“Not in the middle of the street, Langa. What are you, a pervert?”

“You’re such a hypocrite.”

Yeah, he’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> this is just something short i wrote to deal with the fight, i rlly hope u enjoyed. if u did, comments are kudos are wonderful and they make my day <3
> 
> also it’s been like two years since i’ve posted properly on here lmao, but i am working on a few haikyuu fics right now (i wanted to have them done by the end of s4... sobs) so watch this space ig <3


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